While it is true that federal law requires noncitizens to carry immigration documents, this is almost never enforced or prosecuted. What’s more, it’s a far different story to permit federal officials to punish a noncitizen for failure to carry immigration documents and for state and local officials to do the same. Immigration regulation is a federal function.

I find it disingenuous to cite a hypothetical of 12 nervous, shifty-eyed passengers crammed into a minivan being stopped by the police for speeding as being the typical case in which the Arizona police will inquire into a person’s immigration status.

What about the case of two young males wearing sombreros speaking in Spanish in front of a convenience store, or three poorly dressed Spanish-speaking women sitting together at a cafe? Are we really to believe that Arizona’s police officers are not going to make inquiries in those situations?

This law isn’t good immigration enforcement; it’s an invitation to flagrant abuse of the civil rights of anyone caught in its web, including American citizens, permanent residents and applicants for asylum or another lawful status.

Theodore Ruthizer
New York, April 29, 2010

The writer, a lawyer who works on business immigration matters and a lecturer at Columbia Law School, is a former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

The reason the American Civil Liberties Union is calling the Arizona law unconstitutional (as Kris W. Kobach points out) is that it’s true. It’s also discriminatory, unfair and un-American.

It is hard to imagine how this law can be enforced without racial profiling, and claims to the contrary are disingenuous. On what other basis would a police officer suspect that someone is not lawfully present in the United States?

Hollow language inserted in the bill supposedly to prevent such profiling is cosmetic. It won’t prevent the police from asking people for their papers based on race and the way they look.

Racial profiling is already rampant in Arizona, and this law will make it worse. We have seen the effects of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office’s targeting of Latinos, including American citizens and lawful permanent residents, in its mass sweeps and enforcement operations. The A.C.L.U. has sued that office, and the United States Justice Department has started a civil rights investigation into its practices.

This extreme law puts Arizona completely out of step with American values of fairness and equality. The A.C.L.U. will vigorously challenge this law in the courtroom and elsewhere to make sure that it doesn’t take effect.

Photo

Credit
Edel Rodriguez

This law says show us your papers. In response, we’ll show the State of Arizona the Constitution.

In defense of the Arizona immigration law that he helped draft, Kris W. Kobach writes that “the Arizona law hardly creates a police state,” noting that “other nations have similar documentation requirements.” The fact that other countries have used internal identity papers for the most reprehensible reasons hardly justifies our adoption of similar restrictions.

Why is it that the far right is eager to look to the worst practices of other countries to defend restrictions on our civil liberties, but objects when comparisons are made about other countries’ best practices, like health care and the abolition of the death penalty?

I sympathize with those Mexicans and other immigrants who live in Arizona legally and also with those seeking a better life. I would point out, however, that it has always been the law that legal resident aliens carry their “green cards” with them at all times.

As a naturalized citizen who waited five years to obtain a green card and then another four years to become a citizen (with all the expense and paperwork involved), I see no reason to condone illegal immigration.

If we, as American citizens, illegally entered Australia, Canada, Britain or any other country, we could hardly object to being asked for our papers, nor be surprised to be deported forthwith if we didn’t have them. Has everyone lost sight of the meaning of the word “illegal”?

If profiling occurs, then certainly we should revisit the law. In the meantime, let’s withhold indignation and wait and see how the law is administered.

Elizabeth Skelton
San Diego, April 27, 2010

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To the Editor:

It’s a shame that Gov. Jan Brewer didn’t consider the downside to S.B. 1070, Arizona’s new immigration law: It amounts to state-sanctioned racial profiling, usurps federal authority and feeds into a volatile dialogue on immigration in Arizona, which correlates with a rise in hate crimes. It does nothing to fix our immigration system, but will cause hardship, compromise public safety and hurt the economy, as has happened elsewhere as a result of anti-immigrant policies.

At the least, she might have considered that Arizona has more than two million Hispanic and Asian residents — about a third of the state’s population — a million of whom are registered to vote, and they (and others, too, both immigrant and native-born) are fighting mad that she has dragged Arizona through the mud with this law.

In 2008, the popular mayor of Hazleton, Pa., who had raised his profile by enacting anti-immigrant provisions (his ticket to national office, he thought), lost his race for Congress, in part because the immigrants he had so maligned were motivated to vote. Perhaps that is a lesson Governor Brewer will come to learn.

Chung-Wha Hong
Executive Director
New York Immigration Coalition
New York, April 27, 2010

A version of this letter appears in print on May 1, 2010, on page A18 of the New York edition with the headline: The Arizona Law and Its Discontents. Today's Paper|Subscribe